Endeavors to develop improved cellular networks providing greater throughput to support faster data transfer rates is ongoing. One area in which development is occurring is the development of dual carrier cells. In dual carrier cells, a wireless communication device can be assigned two frequency carriers that can be used concurrently to support higher throughput.
For example, dual carrier high-speed packet access (HSPA) technology is being deployed widely in areas such as the United States, Canada, and Europe. In dual carrier HSPA, instead of a device being assigned a single 5 megahertz (MHz) carrier, two adjacent 5 MHz carriers are used. Both of the carriers can be capable of equal throughputs. When a device initiates a data transfer, the device usually initiates the data transfer on a single carrier. The network can subsequently configure the device with a secondary carrier and set up radio bearers so that the device can use both carriers to support the data transfer.
A wireless communication device configured with dual carriers can send measurement reports to the serving network that can be used by the network to make handover decisions (e.g., decisions to change the serving cell). However, wireless communication devices configured with dual carriers typically perform measurement reporting based only on the primary carrier. While relying only on measurement of the primary carrier can work in many cases, it can be a problem if the device's secondary carrier is impacted by a high level of interference and/or loading, which can affect the channel quality and, thus, the throughput available on the secondary carrier. In such a situation, the device may enjoy a high level of throughput on the primary carrier, but may have a low throughput level on the secondary carrier. As such, while the primary carrier can provide a good level throughput for the device, the overall throughput of the carriers configured for the device can be reduced due to the low throughput on the secondary carrier. However, since reporting is based only on the primary carrier, the network can determine to maintain the device on the present dual carrier pair due to the high quality reported for the primary carrier and, thus, the device can remain stuck with the dual carrier pair in spite of the low overall throughput of the dual carrier pair.